RBI waives Rs. 14L loan taken in techie’s name by cybercrooks

The RBI has directed a private bank to waive the repayment of a Rs 14-lakh loan that cybercrooks took in the name of a 27-year-old engineer, whom they had tricked into downloading an APK file. Also, Rs 2.5 lakh was siphoned off the youth’s account, leaving him with Rs 600.

The youth, an employee of an MNC, sent a legal notice to the private bank from which the loan was taken as well as the RBI, following which the apex bank directed the bank to “extinguish a loan liability” of Rs 14 lakh.

The private bank had started asking the youth for EMI payments and even recovery agents had started hounding him. The youth’s lawyer, Bivas Chatterjee, called the waiver “a historic decision” as “all RBI mandated rules were violated when the pre-approved loan was assigned to him”.

According to the proposal by the RBI Ombudsman, “Facts are indicative of deficiencies on the part of the banks in compliance with various instructions issued by RBI. However, negligence is observed on the part of the complainant, too.” “The bank has been advised to extinguish loan liability of the complainant and take steps to rectify the CIBIL records. …no follow-up has to be made with the complainant towards recovery of loan amount,” the proposal stated, adding the remaining Rs 1.8 lakh loss has to be borne by the complainant. The bank has to submit compliance to the decision by April 5.